Claimed by the Immortal (The Claiming)

by Rachel Lee

  It took a while.

  “Don’t try too hard—you can stymie it. It’s part of you like your blood. Let it flow.”

  As soon as he said “Let it flow,” something in her seemed to shift and click into place. She lifted her arm a bit and felt the warm light moving down it to her fingertips.

  “You see?” he asked.

  She opened her eyes and nearly gasped when she saw faint white light shooting from her fingertips. “Oh...” she breathed.

  “Now think of it doing something, preferably innocuous.”

  She saw one of the candles still burning on her dresser. Pointing her finger at it, she imagined the light snuffing the flame. At once the candle went out.

  “I can do it!” Amazement filled her.

  “Your grandmother was right. You’re a powerful mage, Caro. Try something else.”

  So she pointed her finger at her dresser again, and thought of the top drawer opening. At first she feared she would fail, but then, jerkily, the drawer pulled out.

  “Woohoo!” An excited cry escaped her.

  Damien laughed and hugged her close. For a moment she luxuriated in the embrace, but questions remained. “What about the bokor?” she asked. “What do I do when we meet him?”

  “It’s simple, Schatz. I’ll fight him because I have the experience. What I need you to do is see the darkness that’s gathered around him, and imagine your light extinguishing it.”

  “That sounds easy enough.”

  “It’s never easy when power meets power.” His voice had grown deadly serious. “Don’t go in there tomorrow night thinking any of it will be easy. Whether this bokor has powers of his own or has simply summoned them, there will be a fight and we could lose. He clearly has a lot of experience, too.”

  The warning sobered her. “Should I be scared?”

  “It’s never wise to go into this afraid. Fear weakens us. But yes, things could go wrong. Very wrong.”

  She thought about that. “Well, that’s not so very different from being a cop. Every time I make a traffic stop or answer a call, things could go wrong. I’m used to that.”

  He ran his hand down her back, a cool touch. She liked the cool silkiness of his skin and caresses. Not cold, not icy, just cool. She wiggled closer and he sighed.

  “Your warmth is like heaven to me,” he said. “Like heaven.”

  So she wrapped herself even more closely around him, as if she could surround him in her warmth. It seemed to her, really, that she had little enough to offer him. He had powers she could barely imagine, he had abilities beyond the human and he was sexy with every breath he took. The world must be his for the asking.

  “So I’m just food,” she said finally, because some aching, worried part of her needed to know.

  “You insult me.”

  “I do?” She couldn’t hide a spurt of irritation.

  “You do. I may be a predator, I may need human blood to survive, but there’s more to me than a jungle cat. I give thanks for every gift of blood. As for you...”

  He suddenly rolled her over so that he lay on top of her. “As for you,” he said, dipping for a quick kiss, “you’re far more than food to me. Far more. I like you. I like being with you. I like arguing with you. In fact, I like you too damn much for the good of either of us.”

  With that she had to be content, she supposed. At least he wasn’t just after her blood, as he so amply proved in the next hour as he made love to her all over again, this time without bonds, this time without ceremony or ritual. This time he held her still only by gripping her wrists gently.

  He still managed to carry her to the stars as he united them in the mystery of love.

  * * *

  Caro collapsed on the couch at Jude’s office, having agreed to do nothing foolish during the day. Chloe greeted that promise with a snort, but Caro ignored her. Tonight they would face the bokor. That was enough to keep her in line until later. Regardless of her promise to Damien, she knew for a fact that she had no intention of taking any unnecessary risk until the right time.

  Chloe ordered them some breakfast, and remarked that Caro looked exhausted.

  “Just sleepy. I was up all night.”

  “Why do I find that easy to believe? Vampires.” But her tone was teasing. “Actually, I’m going to need some sleep today, too, since I gather tonight is the night. Jude will want everyone on deck.”

  Caro hesitated. “What’s your view of working with a vampire? Or living with one.”

  “Uh-oh,” Chloe said.

  “What uh-oh?”

  “Another one bites the dust. In the past year I’ve seen three women fall for vampires.”

  “And?”

  “They’re all married to them now. Don’t ask me how it works. I only see enough of Terri and Jude to figure out how they work it out. Basically, Terri took permanent night duty at the M.E.’s office, so they work the same hours and fit everything else in around the sun. Seems to make them happy enough.”

  “And the others?”

  “So far so good. A few months isn’t a great sample, though.”

  Caro nodded, taking it in. “Were they claimed?”

  “Oh, sweetie,” Chloe said, “now that’s the thing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they were all claimings. And you have absolutely no idea how hard vampires fight it. One of our friends, Luc? He totally lost his mind when his claimed mate died. He was so far gone he kidnapped me and kidnapped another woman too to try to get his vengeance.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. He was willing to do just about anything to end his pain, including asking another vampire to kill him.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well...” Chloe smiled faintly. “However unwillingly, he got involved in a dustup we had here a few months ago. Some rogues—vampires who don’t want to obey the rules about not treating humans as cattle and slaves—tried to take over the city and run Jude out. Luc came to give us a warning and the next thing I knew, he was up to his eyeballs in another claiming. Maybe you’ll meet her. Dani.”

  “And they’re married, too?”

  “Yup.”

  “How the heck does a vampire get married?” She knew the rules. Birth certificates, residency, filling out forms in offices that were closed by dark.

  “I do a little computer magic, make the legal licenses, and then Father Dan marries them.”

  “Father Dan?”

  “Hang around with us for a while,” Chloe suggested. “Jude fights demons. He has a few clergy who work with him.”

  “And they know he’s a vampire?”

  “Yes.” Chloe’s eyes danced. “Not everyone thinks they’re soulless killers. Father Dan just considers it to be one of the mysteries, and I heard him tell Jude once that God has an odd sense of humor.”

  “Apparently so.” Caro pondered all this new information. “I was thinking that I may not be so happy being an ordinary detective after this. Do you think Jude might want some part-time help? I mean, I’d still have to keep my regular job, but...” She hesitated.

  “You’ve got a taste for the supernatural now. I get it. It’s part of what drew me in.” Chloe dropped her perkiness and showed an unusual intensity. “What I’ve seen working with Jude? People have no idea how much danger there is out there, or how lucky they are to have someone like Jude fighting for them.”

  “And Damien,” Caro added.

  “Damien for now,” Chloe said. “Every so often he talks about going back to Germany. Would you even consider going with him?”

  Well, that was the rub, wasn’t it? Caro thought. Could she give up everything to follow him back to his life? And hadn’t he said something about too many sacrifices killing love? “I don’t know.”

  “Well, he could always stay here.” Chloe shrugged. “You never know.”

  “There’s nothing definite,” Caro said, more to remind herself than Chloe. “Nothing at all.”

  “There never is until there is” was
Chloe’s philosophical comment. Then she added, “You know, they have to move every ten to fifteen years anyway. So maybe it’s not as difficult for them.”

  “How come?”

  “People start to notice that they’re not aging. Sooner or later, they’ve got to move to a new place or risk outing themselves. So Damien’s roots in Cologne might not be all that deep. I know when Jude decides its time to move on, he plans to follow wherever Terri can get a job. Assuming, of course, the place isn’t already overpopulated by vampires.”

  “How so?”

  “Didn’t Damien tell you? They’re territorial, first of all. And second, gathering in large numbers could make folks aware of them. Admittedly that’s not as likely these days between vampire fetishists and the real vamps drinking canned blood. But there are four of them in this town right now, and sometimes I get the sense they might feel a bit crowded.”

  Which would probably drive Damien back to Cologne, Caro thought. She stifled a sigh, afraid of how Chloe would interpret it.

  It was a relief when their breakfast arrived and she could turn the topic to something far safer. Damien had warned her that he couldn’t be ordinary for her, and now she had to live with the consequences of that, however it came out.

  She didn’t think it was going to come out well for her.

  With effort, she pushed all such thoughts aside. The important thing was to stop this bokor before someone else died. She was a cop, after all, and while these methods might be unorthodox, they were the only methods available to save lives.

  She was dedicated to that, wasn’t she? Totally and completely. Saving lives and catching criminals to make the public safer. She’d never counted the cost to herself before, and now would be a lousy time to start.

  She knew all too well what could happen if you answered a call with your mind all mixed up or filled with irrational fear for yourself. That was a helluva good way to wind up dead.

  The training of years took over and pushed aside the things that could weaken her or distract her. She finished eating, determined to catch enough sleep to make her feel fresh tonight.

  She went to the bathroom before stretching out on the couch, and while there she tried what Damien had taught her.

  She closed her eyes, imagining the white heat of power at her center, then directing it to flow along her arm. When she opened her eyes, she could see it. It worked.

  She smiled, sure she was as ready as she could be for tonight.

  * * *

  Caro slept long and deeply on the couch that proved to be as comfortable as any bed. She awoke to hear Chloe ordering dinner and guessed that it couldn’t be long until sunset.

  She rose, stretched and headed for the bathroom to shower and change.

  As she lathered herself under the spray, she remembered how erotic it had been when Damien had scrubbed her with a soapy washcloth, making her skin tingle, touching her intimately in ways no man had ever touched her before.

  Odd to think of the liberties she had never shared with anyone, but then she had to admit most of her relationships had died before they’d gone on very long. She hadn’t had a single one that had gotten to the point of sharing a shower.

  It wasn’t as if she’d never heard of lovers sharing a shower or bath before. She just hadn’t wanted to do that with anyone until Damien. In fact, there were a lot of things she’d never even thought of trying until Damien.

  Things like being tied up and helpless. Things like that delightful little whip of his. She could feel the sensitive tissues between her legs blossom at the memory, and she lingered a little while washing herself, reminding herself of how good it had felt.

  * * *

  Whole new worlds indeed.

  Outside Caro found Chloe setting the table for three. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” Chloe said, “but it was time to order dinner.”

  “I needed to wake up. It’s been a while since I’ve slept that long.”

  “I slept a lot, too. Can you check on the coffee? Terri can’t start her day without it.”

  Caro returned a minute later with her own mug in hand. She could hear Chloe down the hall, paying the deliveryman for dinner—she shortly returned with a stack of foam containers.

  “Italian tonight,” Chloe announced. “I hope you like chicken marsala.”

  “I love it.”

  “These folks make it really well.” She allowed Caro to take some of the containers and set them on the tiny table.

  Three places for five people, Caro couldn’t help but note. She was getting used to Damien not eating human food, but she wondered if it would seem odder over the long run to always be dining alone. Then she reminded herself she would probably never know. Chloe had reminded her, as if she needed reminding, that Damien intended to return home. Even if he were to ask her to join him, she doubted her willingness to give up the life she had built here. She had worked so hard to become a detective. What in the world would she do in another country?

  Anticipated sorrow fluttered darkly around the edges of her mind and heart, but she forced it away. There’d be plenty of time to face that after they dealt with this bokor. Right now she had to maintain her focus. She was about to go out on a dangerous job. After all these years, she’d learned to put aside everything except the task right in front of her. This was a matter of life or death.

  The women ate at the table. The two vampires drank their dinners from glasses—better, Caro supposed, than downing it directly from a bag. It at least seemed more polite, she supposed. Certainly it allowed them to join the others even if they stayed on the sofa.

  Conversation remained casual until Terri left for work. Then everyone gathered around the table, while Chloe carried leftovers into the kitchen.

  “What’s the plan?” Jude asked. “What do you need me to do?”

  “I’m going to follow the power skeins directly to the bokor.”

  Jude looked at him. “You can do that? Why didn’t you do that to begin with?”

  “I didn’t have the power. Now I do.”

  Jude glanced at Caro, a certain understanding in his golden gaze. “Ah. Okay. So you both have enhanced powers now.”

  “Yes,” Damien answered. “And now I can follow the trail of this elemental right back to its source.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I’m going to use every power at my disposal to weaken the bokor and send the elemental back.”

  Jude’s smile was crooked. “You make it sound so easy.”

  “As I’m sure you know only too well, these things are never easy. Fighting power with power is always a touchy thing.”

  “And Caro?” Jude looked at her.

  “She’s going to back me up. She’s found her power, Jude. All she has to do is direct it at the bokor or the elemental. It’ll bolster what I do.”

  “The two of you together should be able to match a bokor.”

  “I hope we do better than match it. Otherwise we’re lost.”

  Jude nodded. “And what do you want me to do?”

  “Stay close with your oils and holy water. So far they’ve worked to keep the elemental back. I may need you to surround us with them when we have the elemental contained with the bokor.”

  “So it can’t escape?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But you’ll be locked inside with it.”

  That was the point at which Caro felt butterflies in her stomach again. All of a sudden the chicken marsala didn’t seem to be sitting well, and anxiety ran along her nerve endings.

  “Locked inside with it?” she repeated. “That could be a mistake.”

  Damien turned to her and took both her hands in his. Strong hands, cool hands. She had a flash of memory at what they were capable of doing to her.

  “We have to be inside with it. If we’re outside, Jude’s wards could be as much a wall to us as to it.”

  “But I can see beyond Jude’s wards now,” she reminded him.

  “Seeing beyond them and casting pow
er beyond them are two very different things.”

  She supposed she could understand that. So she was about to get locked inside a circle with an elemental and a bokor. Not her everyday sort of experience. Her mouth turned a bit dry as she considered every possible thing that could go wrong, and there were a multitude of them.

  Damien’s grip on her hands tightened. “I could fight them alone, Schatz.”

  The offer immediately stiffened her spine. “No. I won’t have that. I’ve been tracking this thing for a week, people have been killed and it has to stop. If there’s any chance my powers might make the difference, then I’m not staying out of this fight.”

  Damien searched her face and she tried to look as determined as she could. After a few seconds, he nodded.

  “And I’m bringing my gun,” she announced. “If necessary, I’m going to use it against this bokor.”

  Damien shook his head. “Your power is the whitest of lights, Caro. Don’t dim it by bringing a weapon of violence with you, or violence in your heart. Please.”

  Everything in Caro rebelled. Going into a dangerous situation unarmed? It violated every precept of her training as a cop. On the other hand... She closed her eyes and felt for that light within her. It was still there and even seemed a little stronger now that she knew how to call upon it.

  Maybe he was right. Her grandmother had always warned her about the way evil backfired. She had never thought of her gun as evil, merely as a tool to be used only in extreme circumstances, but perhaps it would have the wrong vibe for this job.

  Finally she sighed, pulled the holster off her belt and laid it on the table.

  Damien smiled. “Trust. It’s important. Trust me, trust your own power.”

  She looked at her holstered piece and thought that was a whole lot of trust she had just put on the table.

  At Damien’s direction, she bundled up warmly against the winter night. The two vampires, impervious to the cold, simply wore their usual leathers.

  Outside they darted into a dark alley, then Damien lifted her on his back. She clung tightly as they climbed straight up a building. Rock climbers had nothing on a vampire, she thought. Not only did he seem to be able to cling where there was hardly a finger or toe hold, but he moved so swiftly that they reached the top of the building in an eyeblink. Even though she was getting used to the speed at which he could move, she was still astonished at how quickly he set her on her feet.